ShipRecycling Pages:

08 June 2016

European ship owners played a crucial role in 2015 global shipbreaking:

Brussels — In 2015,
a globally total of 768 vessels had to be dismantled. These ships represented a
scrap volume of around 20,4 million gross tonnage. As in previous years, South
Asia remained the preferred dumping ground for ship owners looking to make the
highest possible profits with end-of-life sales: Out of the total 768 large
commercial vessels dismantled around the world in 2015, 469 were sold to South
Asian beaching yards.

The world’s leading
shipping nations account for the biggest amount of end-of-life vessels scrapped
in 2015. The major ship-owning countries Greece, Germany, Japan, South Korea
and Russia sent nearly all of their old vessels for breaking in substandard
yards on the beaches of South Asia, that is, ship owners from these countries
rarely care about proper recycling and have very little legal or economic
incentives to changes their practices. Chinese ship owners sold the majority of
their end-of-life vessels to ship recycling facilities within China, for which
they receive subsidies from their government, while still dumping more than a
fourth of their old ships on beaches.

European ship
owners play a crucial role in the global shipbreaking scenario. The total
number of EU-owned and/or EU-flagged vessels dismantled worldwide were 217 in
2015. Out of the total of ships dismantled throughout the year, EU ships
represented 28,2 per cent. 138 European ship were beached in South Asia. In
terms of tonnage scrapped, European-owned ships thus represented more than one
third of all end-of-life vessels hitting the beaches. While some European
owners show responsibility and have pledged to ensure clean and safe recycling
in modern facilities, close to 64 per cent of all European vessels dismantled
in 2015 ended up on a beach.

Out of the 138
European vessels beached, only 31 were still flying a European flag. 9
European-flagged vessels were flagged out to flags of convenience just before
their last voyage. The most popular end-of-life flags amongst all vessels
scrapped on the beaches in 2015 were Panama, St Kitts and Nevis, Liberia,
Comoros and the Marshall Island, amongst which St Kitts and Nevis and the
Comoros are known as end-of-life flags.